Feeling Ambivalence
by Le Diable
Summary: 17-year-old Bonnie Anderson has been living her whole life in playtime. She rejects the real world and all its conventional expectancies. However, when she meets 31-year-old Andy Davis, he brings her soaring into reality on butterfly wings. TS3 SPOILERS.


**WARNING**: This fanfiction contains SPOILERS FOR TOY STORY 3! If you haven't seen it yet (what the hells wrong with you?) then I suggest you click the back button and get your ass off to the cinema.

Anyhoot, when I went to see Toy Stoy 3 I was hit by two plot bunnies. This one is the easier to write, as the other is a Sid/Andy non - oneshot. I don't know if I want to round to starting that - this one took me forever!

/

_**Feeling Ambivalence**_

/

Seventeen-year-old Bonnie Anderson was a very odd specimen indeed.

She had been a cute baby, an even cuter toddler, and in her pre-adolescent years she had been the epitome of adorable. Her soft dark curls and her freckled cheeks made any adult that looked at her dissolve into coos and indiscernible baby speak, and suddenly all fluffy kittens and squishy little puppies in the world looked like the unholy minions of the Anti-Christ.

Then, at the tender age of eleven, puberty hit, and all the goo-goos and ga-gas were effectively retracted.

The seventeen-year-old Bonnie Anderson that lived and breathed today was a very odd looking specimen indeed.

Adolescence had granted her a good 5'11 inches of height. This was the start of her insecurities, as she was suddenly a good head or two above everybody else – a walking landmark – and to be quite frank, Bonnie Anderson would much rather people weren't always looking up at her like she was a giraffe in the zoo.

The second thing she received was a ridiculously fast metabolism. As her limbs stretched outwards, they also slimmed inwards, and while other girls her age called her lucky, she begged to differ. She became a near literal bag of bones, with no normal female attributes and no small amount of people incorrectly and ignorantly assuming she was anorexic.

And so the short dark bob she had maintained throughout her entire childhood then became somewhat of a veil to hide her self-conscious body behind. It grew – not very healthily – to dangle in scraggly trails to her waist. Anybody could tell that if it had been better treated, she would have had a very fine head of thick luxurious brunette hair. A lot of models and actresses around the world would've killed for that. Bonnie Anderson would've killed to get rid of it. With such a remarkable head of thick, dark hair, came the inevitable addition of thick dark eyebrows, and even _more_ annoyingly, a very unfeminine patch of dark hair on the upper lip.

Bonnie tried to shave it off with her dad's razor when she was twelve. It grew back twice as noticeable.

She really was an awkward looking kid. All elbows, and knees, and black hair.

But there are very tall, very skinny girls everywhere of course. Bonnie Anderson's figure was not a one-off case.

But the character of Bonnie Anderson was definitely a one-off case.

In contrast with her dark features, Bonnie Anderson wore clothes of unusually bright colour. Her long skinny legs were frequently donned in neon striped tights and leggings, her t-shirts boasting big characters, and her converse boots patterned in polka dots and blocks of colour. Instead of buying a sensible rucksack for school, she bought a giant Pikachu backpack and didn't bother bringing books to class. She wasn't a grade A student.

But what did she bring to school?

If you discreetly peeked into Pikachu's back, you might find a bottle of raspberryade, a couple of bags of white chocolate mice, a notepad, some colouring pencils, and what looks strangely like a miniature cowboy's hat. You'd see no further, as then Bonnie would notice, snap at you, and you'd immediately change seats to somewhere at the opposite side of the classroom.

Bonnie Anderson didn't socialise a lot at school. She didn't socialise a lot outside school.

However... she wasn't friendless.

She did have friends. Just not the sort of friends that anybody would consider normal for a seventeen-year-old girl. She didn't gossip with the other girls, she didn't fawn over the boys, and she didn't partake in any clubs, societies or sports. In fact, the most sociable anybody in school had ever seen Bonnie Anderson was when they saw her whispering and giggling, actually _conversing_ with her Pikachu bag.

Making conversation. With a bag.

It's true. Bonnie Anderson was a very odd specimen indeed.

/

"No Jessie, that plan's no good! There's no way you catch him all by yourself!"

"I have to try, Bonnie! Trixie, call my ride."

"No can do, Miss Jessie," Trixie said, shaking her great head sadly. "Bullseye can't ride, he was too seriously handicapped in that last struggle with the Potatoes. He wouldn't be able to last five minutes on that rough canyon road."

"Ok then, call _your_ ride."

An audible gasp. "My Buttercup? Impossible! He only lets two people take him out on the road, and one is me. The other isn't you. Oh irony that the only one who can ride him is the very one we are need to rescue!" Trixie broke into loud, wet sobs. "Oh, Mr. Pricklepants – hold on!"

"Get a hold of yourself woman!" a strong but feminine voice commanded, as Officer Dolly entered the deserted bank. She stepped over the broken glass and addressed Jessie curtly. "Where's the Sheriff?"

"I can't contact him." Officer Dolly drew her away from the group.

"Any idea who did it?"

"I have my suspicions." The pair looked around the bank. Windows were smashed, chairs and tables knocked over and kicked around the room. Behind the counter, drawers had been ripped out and emptied all over the floor. There was not a coin to be seen.

Officer Dolly leaned in. "Who–?"

"Officer Dolly," Bonnie came up behind them.

"Yes, Constable Anderson?"

"There is reason to believe the thief had an agenda against Mr. Pricklepants," she said, her brow furrowing darkly. "The kidnapped has apparently been on his guard for the past few days. I think there may be some sort of blackmail involved, though nobody knows the exact details."

"Blackmail, you say?" Officer Dolly ran a hand through her red hair.

"Yes," Bonnie glanced round at the party assembled near the door. "Of a very _personal_ nature."

"As most blackmail is, Constable."

"Hush!" she snapped suddenly. "I believe there is one among that party who is not being entirely truthful with us." She shot Trixie a distrusting look. "Listen, I heard some very juicy information the other day from Old Slinky who owns the bar down on the outskirts. He told me that Mrs. Trixie Pricklepants was never even admitted to hospital. Why is she wearing that cast? Also, he told me something even _more_ shocking–"

"_Bonnie_?"

"What?" She turned and fixed a stern gaze upon the party. None of them were looking at her.

"_Bonnie_?"

Surprised, she looked back at Officer Dolly and Jessie, who were watching her silently.

"_BONNIE_!"

...

"Urgh..." Bonnie dropped the dolls. They flopped lifelessly onto the mattress. She hopped off the bed and ripped her bedroom door open. "WHAT?"

"Don't take that tone with me, young lady," her mother glared up at her coolly from the bottom of the stairs. "I just wanted to know if you were ready yet. The Davis' will be here soon."

"I'm ready already," Bonnie whined. She looked mournfully back at her bed, at the exciting bank robbery she had just had to abandon for the boring reality of Sunday dinner with the even more boring neighbours.

Her mother looked her over. "Really? Oh, Bonnie..."

Oh God, she was coming up.

"Mom, I don't need you giving me fashion tips," Bonnie moaned as her mother stepped past her and into her room.

"Bonnie, look at the state of this room."

Bonnie looked.

The unmade bed was missing pillows, and it was piled with freshly laundered clothes she hadn't bothered to put away. Her Jessie, Dolly and Trixie dolls were smiling at her from where her pillows should be, in a cardboard box marked 'City Bank' lain sideways and stuffed with bits of scrunched up old tape. The missing pillows were the makeshift hospital for her little Bullseye horse, under the bed, smeared with dust. A slinky dog lay strewn across the floor, where it had tangled itself up with a green dinosaur and a couple of cheap Pizza Planet toys. Pieces of scrap paper with colourful doodles with cellotaped all over the walls. A large tub of colouring pencils had been knocked over and its rainbow-coloured contents had scattered across the room.

Her mother sighed, and stepped over the mess. She opened the wardrobe, and was hit solidly in the face by something bulky and plastic that fell from the top shelf.

"Ow! Jesus Christ, Bonnie, that could've taken my eye out!"

Bonnie quickly picked up the offending object. "Sorry Mom."

"¡_Buzz Lightyear al rescate_!"

"Is that in Spanish?"

"Yeah." Bonnie shook the space ranger figure gently. "Yeah, it does that sometimes."

"What a piece of junk." She paused in her rifling through Bonnie's clothes. "I don't know why you keep those old toys, Bonnie. They weren't even new when you got them."

Bonnie set Buzz Lightyear on the bed.

"I mean, you're seventeen. Don't you think you're a little too old to be playing with dolls?"

"Mom, we have this conversation nearly every week. Can't you just leave it?"

"Fine, fine," her mother sighed and shook her head. "I just don't see why you can't go out to the cinema or out to the amusement park like all the other girls are doing."

Bonnie scoffed loudly. "Going out to the cinema and the _amusement park_? Mom, you're talking about what girls my age did back in the 1950s. Nowadays, the 'cinema' is the off-license, and the 'amusement park' is just a code for 'any random park bench where I can get a shag'."

"Bonnie!" Her mother tsked and pulled out a navy sleeveless dress – plain and unadorned. "Ah, this will do."

Bonnie wrinkled her nose. Her mother laughed, and her tapped her lightly on the cheek.

"Get dressed darling, I'll call you down when they get here."

She shut the door behind her. Bonnie made a very rude gesture at its wooden surface

She slipped dejectedly into the dress, and stood in front of the mirror with a frown. "An insufferably boring dress, for an insufferably boring event," she muttered. She crossed to her chest of drawers and fished out her bright red leggings. Then she threw on a couple of necklaces and scarves, until she no longer looked like a plain girl in a plain dress, but a wild explorer in the savanna, a sailor out on the pacific.

She tilted her head back and inhaled deeply, as if she could really smell the hot dusty air, feel the spray of the sea on her face.

She glanced back at her bed. They stared back at her with their little stitched eyes and painted eyes and beaded eyes – her only friends in the whole wide world. The only friends she would ever need.

"That'll be the story for next time," she told them, as if they could actually hear her.

/

Her mother's special dinners always had a very unpleasant, very awkward sort of atmosphere. It always involved a lot of hugging; a lot of 'oh, look how big you've grown!' crap; a lot of talking over the top of each other in increasingly loud voices, as if they just couldn't wait a few seconds for the other to finish speaking.

Her mother and Ms. Davis were especially quite fond of this shrill garbled way of saying hello. Bonnie went on in to the dining room, not particularly eager to listen to it. Her mother had cast her leggings and many scarves a very condescending look when she came down the stairs, but as the guests had already arrived, she had said nothing.

The dining table was polished to perfection, the wine glasses glittering, the 'special occasion' cutlery gleaming silver, and the napkins all folded into little white swans. It was like something in a kitchen store showroom, and Bonnie didn't like it. At her seat, she turned her knife sideways, and felt a little bit better for it.

The guests were herded in.

Bonnie didn't know the Davis', and as first impressions go, she felt no interest in getting to know them.

Ms. Davis was short and slim with platinum blonde hair, and she wore a plain light blue dress and a white cardigan made out of some tweedy sown stuff. She was with a very unremarkable man, tall with plain coloured hair and blue eyes. The girl that followed them in must of been about the same age as him, in her late twenties, and she had perfectly crimped blonde hair and overly plucked eyebrows. She wore salmon pink, and didn't look good in it.

"There is no way this is your Bonnie," said Ms. Davis, looking her over with a grin. "This girl is far too big to be little Bonnie!"

"Oh I know," said her mother, coming in after them. "I have no idea where she got this height from. Tell Ms. Davis how tall you are, Bonnie."

"5'11," she said, without a smile.

Ms. Davis gasped in that fake way grown-ups do around children. "That's nearly as tall as our Andy!"

The other two guests laughed, and Bonnie still didn't smile. She really hated it when strangers laughed at her. They couldn't possibly be laughing _with_ her 'cause they didn't even _know_ her. So they were laughing _at_ her, making some sort of ha-ha at her expense.

"This is Molly and Andy, Bonnie." Her mother then gestured to the man. "Don't you remember Andy?"

"Um, no."

The man smiled slightly, and Bonnie thought he looked miserable as get out. "It was a long time ago, Mrs. Anderson. I'd be real surprised if she did remember."

"I can barely remember myself, I have to say. Didn't you give her something? Like, a toy or some – Molly, oh my! Is that a _tattoo_?"

"You like it?" Molly Davis pulled down the top of her hideous dress, exposing her tattoo and a rather ridiculous amount of boob.

"Are they some of sort of bird?"

"Swallows, yeah. I got them a month ago, so I haven't got all the colour in them yet. I have other tattoos too, hold on."

She lifted up her crinkly hair so everybody could see the nape of her neck. A lengthy quote of some sort was scrawled along her pale skin, looking like some spider had dipped itself in ink and then scurried along her back. Bonnie was not impressed. The girl had probably got herself drunk and stupid with a Biro pen and safety pin.

"'I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I'm not'," her mother read slowly.

"By the mighty Kurt Cobain," said Molly proudly, as if she had said the quote and not him.

Bonnie's expression did not change. What a load of self-indulgent crap.

She then realised she was being stared at, but when she looked at the man called Andy, his eyes flew back to Molly Davis.

"It's funny how fast they grow isn't it?" her mother said. She gestured to the seats. "Please sit down, I'll get everybody drinks. What'll you have, kids?"

Bonnie glanced down at her lap. She wished she had brought somebody downstairs, somebody that would keep her company and keep her calm. Her hands ached to hold Woody, his soft little arms and his simple smile. Or Mr. Pricklepants in his green felt trousers and fluffy fur. Or even one of her little peas in a pod... Just _something_.

"And just a coke for you, Bonnie?"

"Uh, yeah."

Her mother went into the kitchen, and she was left alone with the Davis'.

"So Bonnie," Ms. Davis propped her head on her hand and smiled over at her. "What age are you now, dear?"

"Seventeen," she replied.

"Gosh, I can't believe it," she said. "Still in school?"

"Yeah."

"Enjoying it?"

"No," replied Bonnie. "I don't like school."

"Oh? Not a big fan of homework? Don't worry about it, dear, I was there when Andy and Molly were getting the stacks of work you're getting, and I can tell you it all pays off in–"

"No," Bonnie interrupted. "I don't like it because I don't like the school."

"Well I'm sure you have a laugh with your friends–"

"No," said Bonnie yet again. "I don't have any friends at school."

She could see Ms. Davis getting more and more uncomfortable by the minute. "...Well dear, you'll be finished soon, and then you can make new friends in college."

"I don't want to go to college."

Her mother came in with a tray laden with beverages, to the evident relief of Ms. Davis.

"Alright," she said, carefully laying down the tray. "A gin for Molly, a white wine for Andy, and a white wine and sparkling water for his mother. I see where he gets his good taste from."

At this, Bonnie blinked. She had assumed when they came in that Andy was Ms. Davis' boy toy, not her child. She looked at them a little closer. There could only have been about ten or fifteen years between them. That, or Ms. Davis had had a lot of cosmetic surgery on her face.

Though they did look quite alike.

"Here's your coke, dear."

Her mother stretched over the table. Andy took the glass from her and passed it to Bonnie.

"Say thank you to Andy, Bonnie."

"...Thanks."

He shook his head with that strange sad smile, and his blue eyes continued to look at her. Bonnie held his gaze for a moment, slightly surprised, and slightly confused. Then she got bored, and lowered her eyes to her drink. What a weird man.

Molly settled into the seat opposite her. "Mm something smells good, Mrs. Anderson."

"I'm glad you say so," said her mother with a grin. "I've made sirloin steak, peppercorn sauce and homemade chips – ha ha!" She laughed at the expression on Molly's face. "Do you like the sound of that?"

"Sounds as good as it smells," said Molly, rubbing her belly. "I love me some steak."

Bonnie got out of her seat. "I'm going to use the bathroom."

"Too much information, dear," said her mother loftily. Ms. Davis tittered pathetically in the background. Bonnie ignored this. When she moved round the table to the door, Molly made a shrill exclamation.

"Ooh, I love your outfit Bonnie!"

"Thanks..."

She ran up the stairs two at a time. Her mother didn't wait long to say to their guests, "She's shy."

Bonnie didn't go to the bathroom. She went right past it and into her bedroom. The bank scenario was still sitting patiently on the bed. She flopped onto her mattress and groaned loudly into the duvet.

"You guys are so lucky you're just toys and don't have to put up with this crap," she murmured, her voice muffled against the fabric. She lifted her head and glanced around the room. The toys were scattered everywhere, so she picked herself up and collected them all onto the bed.

They sat side-by-side in a line across the headboard. Trixie, Rex, Slinky, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, Bullseye, Buttercup, Mr. Pricklepants, Dolly, Mrs. Potatohead, Mr. Potatohead, Hamm, the three-eyed aliens, Chuckles.

She lifted Woody out of the line-up.

"You know what I wish?" she asked him, sitting herself cross-legged in front of the line. "I wish that I never ever grow up. Can you imagine if I turned into someone like Molly? With cheap dress and her bad tattoos and her stupid fake accent? No... no I want to stay a kid forever, with you guys forever. I want to play with you guys forever." She ran her eyes down the line with a small smile. "But only if you want me to, of course."

She looked back down at Woody. The light glinted off his shiny eyes.

"People would think I'm weird for only being able to talk to you guys," she told them. "But that's 'cause you're the only ones that wouldn't laugh right in my face."

She set Woody back down between Buzz and Slinky. There were footsteps coming up the stairs that weren't her mother's clicky heels. They were slow and unsure. She would bet a million dollars on who it was, if she actually had a million dollars.

She grabbed her pillows from under her bed, and quickly covered her line-up behind them.

There was a knock on the door. "Bonnie?"

Surprise, surprise. In a perfect world, she would be a millionaire right now.

"Yeah?"

The door creaked open and Andy's plain head appeared through the gap. "Your mother asked me to fetch you. Dinners ready."

"Ok." She unfolded her long legs and swung them off the bed. Andy had half opened the door, and his eyes were carefully roaming around the room, as if he was looking for something. Bonnie watched him with raised eyebrows for a few silent moments, then asked. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing," he said, though it was obviously something.

"Seriously, what is it?"

He looked at her, an odd smile on his face. "I know you don't remember this – you were very young – but when I went off to college I brought a box of my old toys over to give to you."

Bonnie didn't remember, but as he spoke, something clicked into place in her mind, like a piece of jigsaw.

"I still remember clearly which ones I gave to you," he said. "A slinky dog?"

She didn't say anything. He went on.

"A Mr. and Mrs. Potato-head," he listed. "A green dinosaur, a money bank shaped like a pig, three aliens dolls I won from Pizza Planet... uh, a Buzz Lightyear, a toy horse and a Jessie doll from _Woody's Round-Up_." He paused. "A Woody cowboy doll, too."

She stared at him. Her insides squirmed.

"Well?" he asked. "Do you remember them?"

She cleared her throat. "Um, yeah."

Her arm was still leaning against her pillows. The weight of the toys behind them was heavy, as if they were actually pressing against her. Pressing her to tell him. Tell him that they were right there, less than three feet in front of him.

But what good would come of that?

She averted her eyes. "I threw those toys out years ago."

/

Dinner was very tasty. Bonnie wasn't usually blown away by her mother's cooking, but because they had guests tonight, she had put in a lot more effort. The meat was tender and juicy; the peppercorn sauce not too weak or too strong – just perfect; and the chips were crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. To top things off, her mom had bought several cartons of fruity sorbet for desert.

Bonnie took the raspberry one.

There had been much chatter between the females of the table – excluding Bonnie – and Andy had sat and eaten in silence for the most part. A few times he expressed his compliments to the chef, but it seemed to more of a gesture of politeness than anything else. The rest of the time he didn't speak, his eyes lowered, eating slowly, his mind elsewhere.

Bonnie didn't pay much attention to him, but every so often she could feel his gaze on her. It wasn't a look without emotion either.

Maybe she had made him angry. Or upset him.

With a half shrug, she helped herself to a spoonful of icy raspberry goodness. What the hell did she care, anyway.

/

"I think that went quite well, don't you?" her mother came in from the hall, hands on her wide hips, evidently very pleased with herself.

Bonnie glanced out the window, where the Davis' were getting into their car. "Yeah."

"Just 'yeah'?"

"Yeah," she repeated. Then she added, "The food was pretty great."

Her mother laughed, and drew her into one of those random motherly hugs she did every so often. She smelt like flowers, and her arms were warm and safe.

"What am I going to do when you go off to college, huh?" she said into Bonnie's shoulder (Bonnie was a good few inches taller than her). "I'm going to be here all alone. I'll have to take up a new hobby, or get a bird or something."

Bonnie watched the Davis' car vanish up the street.

"Mom, I was thinking... why don't I just _not_ go to college?"

The moment was over. Her mother pulled away and fixed her with raised eyebrows. "Honey, everyone has to go to college."

"But... I don't really want to go."

"What about being a vet, huh? You need to go to college to be a vet."

Bonnie stared at her. "Mom, I wanted to be a vet when I was like, six or something."

"Well, what do you want to be then?"

"I don't know yet."

Her mother shook her head irritably, and began collecting up the plates. "Give me a hand with this, Bonnie."

Angry at her dismissal, Bonnie snatched up the plates carelessly. A fork covered in peppercorn sauce fell to the floor and stained the carpet.

"_Bonnie_! My good carpet!"

"Sorry," she said, and didn't mean it.

"You really are just a little brat sometimes, aren't you?" she snarled, crossing into the kitchen and grabbing the kitchen roll. "Ever since your father left, you just seem to go out of your way to make things more difficult for me. Isn't that right?"

"Oh that's right," snapped Bonnie, hurt and angry. " I'm just a horrible little brat, and I don't actually _care_ that you make shit and we live on crappy benefits. No, no. All I ever do is try and make things worse, because I'm to blame for everything, and you've _never_ done a single thing wrong in your perfect little life!"

"GO TO YOUR ROOM!" her mother bellowed, but Bonnie had already shot up the stairs and slammed her door so hard several drawings of Mr. Pricklepants fell off and fluttered onto the floor.

She threw herself onto the bed and screamed as loud as possible into her pillow. She then peered over the top of it, and found all her friends sitting on the other side, still smiling and staring as if there was nothing wrong or bad in the world.

"You guys are so fucking lucky," she muttered.

/

Their little argument was more or less forgotten within a few days, but a small discoloured circle on the dining room carpet was a pretty uncomfortable reminder.

Feeling bad about it, Bonnie popped into the local newsagents on the way home from school one day with enough change to buy a bar of her mother's favourite dark chocolate. She was at the counter, her Pikachu bag open and the bar of chocolate being deposited safely inside, when a hand fell on her shoulder.

She glanced round. It was Andy.

"Hi Bonnie," he said.

She quickly zipped her bag closed, hiding Woody and Jessie and Dolly from sight.

"Hi," she said, somewhat coolly, the events that followed his leave on Sunday playing through her head, though it didn't really make any sense to blame to him.

He noticed her tone. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah I just, uh, gotta head home now."

"Oh, well wait for me to buy this, and I'll walk with you."

Bonnie resisted the urge to groan very loudly. Crap, crap, crap.

They walked mostly in silence. Bonnie's hands were jammed deep into her pockets, her eyes fixed on her worn out converse boots as they scuffed along the pavement. Andy was gently swinging his bag of purchases to and fro as he walked. The frozen pizza and four-pack of cheap beer really spoke volumes.

"Party tonight?" she asked sarcastically.

He shot her an amused look. "Oh yeah. The Disney Channel's going to show a whole lot of old '90s classics – figure I'd put my feet up and, uh, reminisce."

"That's pretty sad."

He chuckled. "Yeah well, I'm pretty sad."

Bonnie shrugged her shoulder. "Yeah I noticed."

He looked at her with those blue eyes. She looked away. The sun broke out of the clouds and cast warm light on her bare arms. It made the whole neighbourhood look a lot more homely.

"Don't you live upstate?" she asked him. "Are you visiting your mom or what?"

"Oh, no. I just bought a house down here."

"Really? What about your job?"

"I quit, and sold my flat." They reached Bonnie's house, and stopped at the gate. "It's a lot nicer down here, so I just decided to come back."

She surveyed him, one hand resting on the gate. "Enjoy your pizza."

He smiled, and it was that same sad smile from before. It made him look like dejected, like a broken toy. "Thank you."

She turned away.

"Oh, Bonnie, wait."

"What?"

He came up behind her. "Your backpack is open."

"Oh, right..."

Bonnie could feel him fussing around with the zip. He was standing close enough behind her that when he hissed through his teeth in annoyance, she felt the air ghost over the back of her neck. She got goosebumps. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to put a good few feet of distance between them.

"Uh, the zip's stuck. There's a doll here and her hair's all jammed in it."

"It's fine," she said quickly, pulling her bag out of his grasp and moving round the fence. "I can sort it out myself."

He nodded. "Tell your mother I said hello."

"Yeah," she said, turning away. "Bye."

She was halfway across the garden when she heard him speak again. "...Bye, Bonnie."

When she looked back, he was gone.

/

Bonnie spent the whole evening in her room.

She paced, she sat, she stood. At one point she was lying face down on the floor, not really sure what the hell she was doing.

Her mind was elsewhere.

More specifically, her mind was located right smack down on a pair of big blue eyes.

Why couldn't she get those stupid big eyes out of her head?

She went downstairs and made herself a snack. Then she went back downstairs and got a glass of lemonade. As she munched and slurped, she thought about Andy's leather jacket and how nice it looked on him. She thought about his plain, mousy coloured hair and how soft it must feel. OK, she was still thinking about Andy, but at least she wasn't thinking about his eyes.

Oh no, wait... _now_ she was thinking about his eyes.

Bonnie set her empty glass on her empty plate, and pondered over the best way to stop thinking about stupid ugly Andy Davis.

Her eyes fell on her Pikachu bag. Of course!

She retrieved Woody and Jessie, and the recently rescued Dolly, and began to play.

"Oh, Sheriff Woody help me!" she crooned, making Jessie swoon on the floor. "That witch took my baby!"

"_Somebody's poisoned the water hole_!" said the Woody doll.

"No Sheriff Woody!" Bonnie said crossly. "There's more serious crime afoot! Dame Jessie's child has been kidnapped!

"I see," she put on a heavy masculine voice. "Well, I'll sort this out in a jiffy. RARGH ARGH!"

She threw Woody at Dolly.

"Return the child, evil spinster! Or I'll have your head, goddammit!

"My baby, my baby!"

She took the pea away from Dolly.

"Oh, Sheriff Woody, how can I ever thank you?

"Well, you could start by giving me some of that sweet lovin' o' yours...

"Ooh Sheriff Woody..."

Bonnie pressed Jessie and Woody's faces together and made kissing noises.

"Oh Jessie, oh Woody! Mwah, mwah!"

She sniggered.

"Mwah! Oh Bonnie, oh Andy! Ooh feels so–"

She stopped short. Did she actually just say... what she thought she just said?

She stared down at the dolls, their big plastic heads connected by their simple, happy smiles. Then she became inexplicably angry, and she flung them away from her. They skidded in a heap against the skirting board, their little fabric limbs intertwined like lovers.

"Agh! Crap, crap, crap!"

Bonnie stood up, forgot what she was doing, and sat down again. Then she scrambled over and cradled Jessie and Woody to her chest, apologising profusely, like a silly child.

"See what I just did?" she said to them. "That guy Andy causes nothing but problems."

Jessie and Woody got prime position on her pillow that night.

/

The next morning over breakfast, Bonnie was packing her lunch into her bag, and she came across the bar of chocolate she had bought the previous day.

She glanced over the table at her mother, who was pouring herself another glass of juice.

"Uh, mom?" She passed her the chocolate. "Um, sorry about the other day..."

Her mother took the chocolate and stared at it. Then she raised her eyes over her glasses to her daughter, and she was smiling. "Oh, sweetie..."

Bonnie found herself in another one of those hugs. She imagined what it'd be like to be somewhere where she wouldn't have her mother's love within her reach, and her resolution not to go to college strengthened tenfold.

"You can be such a little angel when you want to be, you know that?"

"Yep."

Her mother pulled away, and got several long locks of Bonnie's hair entangled round her arms.

"Jesus Bonnie, I think you should get this cut."

Bonnie swept her hair impatiently into a knot on the back of her head. "So you do like the chocolate?"

"Definitely," her mother said. "Ooh, and it's dark too. Perfect. Did you get this when you were with Andy yesterday?"

"Yeah," she said, then gave a start. "Wait, how did you know I saw Andy yesterday?"

"Ms. Davis and I went round to give him a hand with decorating his new place," she said. "Of course when we got there, he was sitting on his ass on the ground in front of the TV with a pizza! How nice it must be to be a bloke, huh? Move into a new house and all they bloody need is an oven, a TV and junk food."

Bonnie shrugged her shoulder. "Sounds like a pretty good life."

"I'm not surprised you say that," said her mother. "Now get on off to school or you'll be late."

"Alright, alright, I'm going."

"Actually you know what? You should pop by Andy's afterwards and help him out."

Bonnie scoffed. "What?"

"Yeah, go and give him a hand, it's just moving things around."

Bonnie hesitated in the doorway, surprised to find herself seriously considering it. "Uh, I don't even know where he lives."

"It's that house that was for sale, on the road at the side of the school, you know it?"

"Oh yeah." Bonnie hesitated, and then asked in her most convincingly uncaring voice possible, "What if his girlfriend or mates are there? That'd be pretty uncomfortable."

"Girlfriend? Mates?" her mother laughed. "There's no girlfriend, and no mates. He's on his own at the moment, which is even _more_ reason why he should have somewhere to keep him company." She eyed her daughter condescendingly. "Even if it is you, you grumpy unsociable mare."

"He's a big boy, he's alright by himself." But she had made up her mind. She hurried up the stairs as an after-thought occurred to her, and her mother's voice rang out behind her.

"Where are you going? You have to go to school, not back to bed!"

"I just forgot my pencil case!" she called, the lie slipping easily off her tongue.

She unzipped her bag and looked around her bedroom with a grin.

/

"Time flies when you're having fun" they say.

Bonnie could vouch for the veracity of this phrase, as Bonnie was most certainly not having fun, and time had quite literally slowed to a standstill.

In fact, if it was going any slower, it'd be going backwards.

Why for? One word. SCHOOL.

The bane of any normal teenager's existence. The single word 'school' stood for so much that Bonnie despised. Such as classrooms, black pens, lined notebooks, whiteboards, registers, regulations, and those stupid little plastic seats that hurt your ass after five minutes sitting on them.

Bonnie groaned inwardly. She _hated_ school.

And it was a near hour until the bell dismissed them for the day. A near hour's length of time before she could get the hell out of this stupid chair, out the stupid door and onto the not so stupid streets of sweet, sweet freedom.

Then to Andy's house.

Bonnie knew precisely why her stomach swooped at the thought. She had only ever had a crush on one other person in her life. And that was the actor who had played adult Simba in the production of The Lion King that her mother took her to a few years ago on holiday in England. He had been so dark and sexy she had gone to see it a second time, and she had blushed and bubbled up with excitement when he entered the stage.

But did she really have a crush on Andy? Yes, she did. She could accept that.

There wasn't really a lot of other reasons why she would think about him constantly the whole of last night, this morning and throughout this afternoon.

And she wasn't just thinking about him in the sense of "Oh, Andy Davis? Yeah I'm thinking about him, he's a cool sort of guy."

She was thinking about his kind face and his long, lean body. She mentally compared him to Sexy Simba. And while Sexy Simba was her metre stick on which every other guy was to be judged, Andy was absolutely nothing like him. Andy was soft, and somewhat pretty, which was a probably a weird way to describe a guy. When she saw him on Sunday, the first word that had come to mind was 'unremarkable'.

And he _was _unremarkable. But he was still quite gorgeous.

Bonnie absent-mindedly doodled a heart on her notebook. Yes, Andy _was_ gorgeous. So gorgeous she certainly wouldn't mind 'giving him a hand', as it were.

She burst out laughing. Several of her classmates looked round in alarm.

When the bell did eventually ring, Bonnie looked up in surprise. Her mind had been elsewhere, and time had pretty much slipped her mind. She picked up her notebook. Every square inch of the front page was covered in little doodled hearts.

Wow. Thinking about Andy was fun. It passed the time.

Bonnie knew the house that had been for sale. She passed it whenever she went to the park after school. It was a small semi-detached place with a small, overgrown garden. A delivery van was parked outside, and the front door was open. She stood outside and stared at it, not really sure if what she was doing was a good idea.

"Bonnie?"

She yelled in shock. Andy yelled too. He fell back a few steps, hand over his heart.

"Christ," he said. Then he laughed. "You're loud."

"You sneaked up on me," she countered.

"I didn't expect you to yell," he mumbled, smoothing some of his brown hair off his forehead.

Bonnie took a good look at him. He was wearing faded jeans and an old t-shirt that was splattered with dried paint. His boots were dusty, and his hands were dirty. He'd left a smudge of black on his forehead, which she decided not to tell him about.

"Spring cleaning?" she asked, dryly.

"Not exactly," he said. He gestured to the van. "Just got a new couch."

"Oh," she said, and couldn't think of anything else to add.

A big man with a clipboard came out of the house and addressed Andy. "Sign 'ere please."

"Uh, ok." He took the clipboard and signed. Bonnie had to fight the impulse to kiss his lowered eyelids. When the man and his clipboard and his van were gone, there were suddenly no distractions, and her nerves began dancing around in her stomach like butterflies.

"So, what are you doing here?" Andy asked, smiling at her. "Can I help you with anything?"

"No it's just, uh... my mom said you needed some help, I was just wondering if I could give you a ha – _hem-hem_ – a hand." She forced herself to cough loudly, but anybody with ears could've heard her poorly disguised laughter.

He gave her an unnerved look. "Uh, what's so funny?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. "I had a few bottles of soda on the way here."

"...You do know soda is non-alcoholic, right?"

"Yes I know," she snapped. "The sugar gets to me."

"Alright, sorry." He paused. "You could help me unpack a few boxes, if you'd like."

She half-shrugged. "That's why I'm here."

The house really did need help. The walls were covered in strips of fading wallpaper that was clearly impossible to remove. The floor had been taken up, and all that was left was the scratchy, dirty cement underneath. There were spider webs everywhere, a damp smell lingered in the air, and the windows had been blocked out with old newspaper.

They came into the front room. Bonnie took one look at the TV and pile of blankets in the middle of the floor, and turned to Andy with raised eyebrows.

"You've actually been living like this?"

Andy nodded the affirmative.

"So you... you've been _sleeping_ on this floor? With these blankets?"

"Not any more," he said. "I just got this couch, remember?"

Bonnie looked at it. It was cheap and ugly and didn't look comfortable.

She told him so. He looked like he agreed with her.

"Well, this is the best I can get with the money I have," he said. He sank onto it and sighed, running his hands through his light brown hair.

Bonnie perched herself on one of its lumpy arms. Then she couldn't make herself comfortable, so she stood back up. Andy surveyed her through his fingers.

"You can go if you like," he said, mistaking the reason behind her fidgeting. "You don't have to be here just 'cause your mom told you to."

"I'm not here just 'cause she told me to," Bonnie replied.

Andy laughed. It was a humourless, dejected sound. "It's ok Bonnie, I'm not going to tell her you left. I'll tell her I sent you away. Come on, you'd be having much more fun somewhere else instead of being stuck here with sad old me."

Bonnie gave him a surprised look. "Why do you call yourself that?"

He dropped his hands from his face. "_I_ don't. You do. Remember? You called me sad just yesterday."

She flushed. "I didn't mean it that way."

He laughed again. "Bonnie it's ok, I'm not offended. What other way could you mean? That I'm sad as in, not happy –?"

"_Yes_!" she snapped. "That's _exactly_ how I meant it."

Silence fell, and she suddenly regretted even coming. He was staring at her with those beautiful blue eyes, but his face was no longer sad or smiling. In fact, it looked like he might start yelling at her – which was something Bonnie really didn't want to experience.

She was dithering between apologising and running away, when Andy finally made a resigned noise, and shook his head.

"Yeah," he said. "That's about right."

Bonnie slid awkwardly onto the seat beside him. "Um... do you want to like, talk about it?"

It was his turn to look surprised. "Why are you being all friendly all of a sudden?"

"I'm not! I mean, uh..." A blush creeped up her neck, but Andy thankfully moved on without noticing.

"Forget I said that," he said, then as an afterthought – "Now _I'm_ the one being unfriendly."

She shook her head. He surveyed her for a few moments, and then asked, "You said you didn't want to go to college?"

She shook her head again.

"If that's really the case, don't go," he told her. "I ended up like this 'cause I ended up in a crappy profession. You know how I ended up in a crappy profession? 'Cause I went to college, and wanted to stay with my mates, and did the same stupid course they were doing, and I hated it."

"What course was it?"

"Computer engineering." He laughed at her grimace. "I know..."

"Did you ever want to do anything else?"

"American literature, and creative writing," he said wistfully. "I always wanted to write children's stories."

Bonnie found herself smiling. "That's pretty cool."

"Yeah," he said. "But then I came out of college qualified for only one thing, and I got stuck in a meaningless cubicle job that I hated. I only quit 'cause Mom visited me upstate and told me I seemed depressed. Maybe I was, a little bit."

He suddenly looked at her and laughed. "I guess you are a little bit too, after listening to that."

She half-shrugged. "Not at all. I'll just tell that story to my Mom, and then she'll change her mind about wanting me to go."

Andy tilted his head sideways, and her heart pounded a little faster in her chest. "Don't you have any dreams, Bonnie?"

"Yeah," she said. "I want to never have to put up with any of that stuff. I like things the way they are right now."

"I'm being serious."

"So am I."

He raised his eyebrows. "No you aren't."

She sighed and folded her long legs underneath her. "I guess... I like drawing."

"Why don't you go to art college?"

"There aren't any art colleges around here."

"You can move state–"

"There!" she exclaimed, pointing in his face. "There we go, there's the word. _Move_. As in, just pack up your bloody bags and leave home in the blink of an eye, like it never meant shit to you. Maybe that was ok for you, but it's not ok for me. I don't want to leave home, leave my mom, leave my toys and my room just because some people think it's some sort of 'right of passage' or something–"

"You think growing up is just a right of passage?" Andy asked.

She didn't know what to say to that. "I don't want to grow up."

"It's not something you can prevent," he said gently. "It's just one of those things in life you have to accept. I mean, the last time I saw you, I was seventeen. Now I'm thirty-one. It's a scary thought, I know, but... that's just _it_, that's the way things are."

"And my mom?"

"She's probably already accepted that you'll leave someday," he said. "Of course she'll be sad, but you can't stay with her forever. When me and Molly moved out, my mom was upset, but it's not like we never see her or anything."

Bonnie shook her head angrily. "It's different for me, my dad _walked out_ on my mom–"

"So did mine."

She opened her mouth to retort, and then scoffed. "Is there anything you _don't _have the answer for?"

"Just one."

"Huh?"

"How did you manage to get so damn tall? You were _tiny_."

It was strange, the atmosphere between them. Strange in this case meaning completely unfamiliar. Bonnie felt like all the nerves and tension had vanished from her body. She was able to sit comfortably beside him without wanting to put a good solid barrier between them, which was how she usually felt when she was in such close proximity to another living being (except her mother, of course). He was sitting with his body turned towards her, one arm casually thrown over the back of the couch, watching her earnestly. It was indeed strange, but it was also quite nice.

She had never been so at ease with another person before in her life.

"Yeah," she snickered, "everyone says that. They're always like 'Hey Bonnie, you were so cute, what the hell happened?' If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me, I'd be a millionaire right about now. "

He drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. "They really said that?"

"Yep."

"That's a little unfair."

"Yeah, how so?"

"You were a cute kid, yeah. But you're very pretty now."

"Well I don't think that's the universal opin–" Bonnie suddenly did a double take as his words hit home. "Wait, what? You think I'm _pretty_?"

Andy raised his eyebrows at the incredulous expression on her face. "Why are you so surprised?"

Bonnie gaped at him. "But you...I..._me_?"

His eyebrows positively vanished into his hairline. "Huh?"

She averted her eyes, feeling her face go hot. "Sorry... it's just uh... no-one's ever called me pretty before."

Andy didn't say anything. She didn't dare look at him.

Oh good God. The butterflies and the tension and all those goddamn nerves were back, and they were back with a bloodthirsty vengeance. That's great Bonnie, you've just stuck your big size 8 foot right in the middle of it, haven't you? Well done. Top notch. Ten out of ten. You've royally freaked him out now.

She shot him a sideways glance. Oh, he was still looking at her.

And not looking all that freaked out.

...Huh. Fancy that.

"Sorry," she said again. Her nervous butterflies were slowly evolving into goading monkeys. "I must be easily flattered, right?"

He didn't seem to know what to say. His lips quirked into a friendly sort of half-smile. She held his gaze firmly. The smile flickered and fizzled out, only to be replaced with a look of mild confusion.

Those bloody beautiful eyes blinked curiously.

"Bonnie?"

That was it. She was going to impulsive. She was going to put her big size 8 whatever right in the middle of it, and royally freak him out. The monkeys were hooting with glee.

Bonnie closed the distance between them, and kissed him.

...

...Wow.

Andy was just as soft as he looked. A million lovely, pleasant things whirled around in Bonnie's head, just through that simple, gentle contact. Flower petals, bird feathers, white clouds, and God knows what else, but what the hell was she going to care? She was _kissing Andy_.

And he was kissing her back.

Bonnie half-opened one eye. Andy's beautiful eyes had slipped shut. His mouth was soft and wet on hers. His hand brushed gently up her neck, and then it was in her hair. She had goosebumps all over. It was like a kiss from a fairytale. It was out of this world.

It was like magic.

And then it was over.

Andy turned his face away and broke contact. Then he shook his head, and dropped his hand from her hair.

"Jesus," he said. "What am I doing..."

He was suddenly gone, the heat of his body gone. He was at the other side of the room, his back turned to her, his hands once again running frantically through his hair. Reality slammed down in its usual ugly fashion all around them.

"Jesus," he said, again.

Bonnie's stomach was doing that cold thing, where it felt like a slippery fish flopping in the pit of her belly. Sitting there alone on that couch, she felt like a stupid child. A stupid child who had acted stupidly and now looked like a stupid fool.

He was right. What the hell _had_ she been doing?

She leapt off the couch and made quickly for the front door.

"Woah, woah! Bonnie wait!"

She had barely made it out of the front room when his footsteps came up hurriedly behind her and he grabbed her by the wrist. She tugged furiously against his grip, as if his touch repulsed her.

"Wait, Bonnie, just wait..."

"No!" she spat, turning her face away from him, as if even the sight of him was distasteful. "You're a pathetic liar, I don't want to be anywhere near you!"

"What? _Liar_? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about 'Ooh Bonnie, you're so pretty, you're so pretty'!" she mimicked cruelly. "Then you pull _that_, trying to make me feel like I'm about two bloody inches big – well you know what? It worked! I feel _foolish_."

"Look," he said slowly, like he was talking to somebody mentally challenged. "Calm down. Sit down. Let's talk."

"Um, let me think... _Nope_."

"Bonnie..." He sounded tired. He pressed one hand over his eyes and sighed. "Just five minutes, and then you can go."

She scoffed, but didn't persist. He cautiously let go of her arm. She didn't move.

"We don't have to sit, we'll just talk quickly," he said. "Look, I shouldn't have let that happen."

"Oh _really_?"

"Yes really," he said firmly. "That was like taking advantage of you, and I shouldn't have done it–"

"How the hell was that 'taking advantage'?" she demanded. "_I_ kissed _you_. I _wanted_ to kiss you, and you kissed back. What's the big deal?"

"You're only seventeen," he said. "I'm thirty. It's not right."

"What a load of bull."

His lips twitched into an amused smile. "It's not. Look, I wasn't lying when I said you were pretty ok? I just... ugh. Bonnie, do you know what I think of when I look at you?"

"I wonder."

"I think of me."

"_What_?"

"Me, when I was your age. I was young and excited about the future, and I had all these decisions to make, all these choices to choose, and I messed it up big time." He paused. "Though you're a lot more interesting than I ever was."

"So what? What does that even mean?"

"It means I want to help you do the right thing. You said you have dreams, right? You haven't told me them, but I still want you to follow them where I didn't. You're a good kid, and I don't want you doing the stupid things I did."

Bonnie folded her arms across her chest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he said, then added, "I kissed you because you were a pretty girl kissing me. I couldn't really say no to that outright."

She scuffed the dirty floor with her boot. "You didn't really need to say 'no' at all, you know..."

He laughed. "Really, what were you planning to do after kissing me? We both know that nothing could hap– Bonnie?"

Bonnie made a sudden movement, like she had received an electric shock. She quickly wriggled out of her backpack, and pushed it into his arms.

"I forgot," she said breathlessly, her face flushing with colour. "I wanted you to have this."

Andy looked down at Pikachu, and then up at her with raised eyebrows. "Um, thanks?"

"Open it."

He returned his slightly perturbed gaze to the bag. He unzipped it slowly and removed the top most item.

"A notebook – oh, look at all the hearts. That's, uh, nice..."

Bonnie snatched it from him. "Not this, this is my schoolbook."

"Right, and that wouldn't make any sense at all," he said wryly. He went red. He had only spent about a half an hour with her and already he was beginning to sound a little bit like her.

She gestured to the bag. "Go on."

He reached back in. There was a metallic jingle from inside the bag, and he frowned. "What's...?"

His voice caught in his throat. He pulled his arm back out, and in his hand he was clutching the head of an old slinky dog.

Bonnie watched his face eagerly, but he didn't smile or laugh or even cry like she thought he might. In fact, apart from a bit of blinking, his expression barely changed at all.

He set the slinky dog on the sofa and took out the next toy – a plastic tyrannosaurus rex.

Then a pair of Potatoheads – Mr. and Mrs. –, a piggy bank, a cowgirl and horse plushie from the show _Woody's Roundup_... Bonnie watched intently the way he carefully handled the toys – as if they were made of glass and not plastic or vinyl. He chuckled and squeaked the three-eyed Pizza Planet aliens, and she was glad that he was reacting at least a _little_ bit to her gesture of goodwill.

The last two toys in the bag were the Buzz Lightyear and the Woody cowboy. He held them out, and looked between them, between the dated action figure and the old pull-string doll.

Andy set them down in front of the others and looked hard at them. Then his face split into a grin.

"Oh my God," he said. "I can't believe it."

He picked Woody back up and fixed his hat. He turned him over and pulled his string.

"_There's a snake in my boot_."

"Oh my God," he said again, laughing. "Oh my God..."

He turned to Bonnie, and she took a quick mental picture of his smiling face – _truly_ smiling. Not a sad or self-depreciating smile but a _real_ smile – of real happiness. He looked younger, and healthier, and if even possible, even more beautiful than before.

"I actually can't believe this," he said. "You said–?"

"I know. And I'm sorry I did."

He didn't ask why, and she was glad for it.

"Thank you," he said. He lifted Woody's boot. Bonnie winced.

"Sorry," she said. "I never understood why it said Andy on it, so I scraped it off."

"It doesn't matter," he said. "I just can't believe you kept them all these years, and in such good condition too."

"They're pretty special to me." Bonnie bit the inside of her lip, feeling herself becoming embarrassingly emotional. "They've been my best friends - my _only_ friends, for years now..."

He looked at her. "Your only friends?"

She nodded. "Everyone always said that I was being stupid and childish because of it. But I never _needed_ anyone else. They're always there for me when I need them, they always listen to me when I have a problem, they're the only ones who wouldn't just hurt me or laugh in my face." She paused, thinking about their little material eyes watching her, understanding her. "Sometimes, I even think they can hear me. Sometimes I even think they're alive, in a way..."

She shot him a quick glance, expecting scorn and raised eyebrows. But he was nodding, and his face was sincere.

"I know what you mean. I really do."

There was a small silence between them. Andy looked down at Woody in his hands, his fingers gently feeling out his soft arms and legs, the smooth lines of his face and hair. He was special to him. Bonnie blinked, something stirring in the back of her mind, someone's voice...

"_He's been my friend, for as I long as I can remember..._"

He brought her back to reality. "Thank you Bonnie. Really, thank you for everything."

"For _everything_? Andy, I haven't done that much."

He shook his head. "You don't really know how important that day was, when I gave you these toys. It wasn't just that I was getting rid of some old stuff, or giving away some things precious to me. You know what it was really about?"

"What?"

He smiled. "Letting go."

"Letting... letting go?"

Bonnie lowered her eyes. _That's the way things are_, he had said. It was inevitable. It was unstoppable. It was a part of life, and it was the same for everyone. Everyone ages, everyone changes, everyone moves on from the past and on to new things. It was a part of actual real life. It was a part of...

...A part of _growing up_.

"Andy," she said suddenly. "I want you to have the toys."

He started. "What?"

"I want you to have the toys," she repeated. She didn't know whether she was running high on the adrenaline of the whole situation, or if she was going a little crazy. "You need them more than I do right now. And they were your toys originally..."

"Bonnie," he said, looking down Woody and back at the rest. "You love these toys."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, I do. But so do you."

His beautiful eyes gazed at her. They were full of emotion. "You're an amazing kid, you know that?"

"I'm not–"

"You are," he said firmly.

She blushed, and ducked her head. "Fine..."

To her great embarrassment, he reached out and ruffled her hair. She went even redder and batted his arm away. He looked like he was trying very hard to restrain a laugh.

She never did get round to helping him unpack. She really was a little bit useless, in the practical sense of things.

He insisted on walking her home. As they strolled slowly down the pavement – her backpack so incredibly light – Bonnie remembered the preceding day and how much she had wanted to get as far away as possible from him, and how different she felt at that exact moment. If she had contacted her self from yesterday and told her she was going to kiss Andy, the yesterday self would've given her the same sullen, unimpressed expression that she herself had turned on him the day she'd first met him.

Well, not exactly the first day...

"Hey Andy," she asked, jamming her hands deep into her pockets. "What happened that day when you brought me toys? Did you just drop them off or did you stay for dinner, or did my mom drag you in for cookies and cherryade?"

Andy laughed. "Yeah, your moms great in that aspect. And it was none of those actually, I stayed and we played with them for a bit."

"We? Like, me and you?"

"Yeah, me and you," he said. "It was great fun."

"Huh..." Bonnie sighed. "I wish I could remember... Ugh, you know what? We should've played with them while we were at yours, would've been a laugh."

Andy snorted. They had reached her house in what had seemed – at least to Bonnie – like a minute's walk when she remembered it being so much longer. "You were a little kid last time, Bonnie. The, uh, context is a bit weird for that now, right?"

Bonnie turned to him with a frown. "Oh yeah? And what exactly would the 'context' call for now, huh?"

He glanced over at her house, then up the street. He leaned in and lightly brushed his lips against hers, so gentle she almost didn't feel it. Like the brush of a butterfly's wing, feather light.

Bonnie gaped at him, shocked, for quite a long time. Then she jolted.

"Sorry," she said. "I zoned out."

Andy shrugged, looking a little too pleased with himself.

"Anyway," she continued, wanting to slap the look off his face. "What's 'weird' about having one last playtime with my only friends? Saying goodbye?"

He looked as if she actually had slapped him in the face. The smug look was immediately gone, and he looked horrified. "Christ Bonnie, I'm sorry, I didn't know you wanted–"

"No, no, it's ok," she said quickly. "It's... It's not that big a deal anyway."

Andy surveyed her. She continued to smile, and hoped she looked sincere. He didn't look convinced, but he moved on in what she assumed was an attempt to comfort her.

"How would we even play with them anyway?" he asked. "We're a bit too old for haunted bakeries and the like."

She frowned. "Who said anything about haunted bakeries?"

"No-one."

He was smiling to himself, presumably to some hidden joke. Bonnie watched him, her frown furrowing her brow. Her first impression of him hadn't changed entirely – he _was_ weird.

"Well," she started. "We don't have to use childish stories, I mean we _are_ adults..." She twisted her hands in her pockets. "I mean, we could pretend that... that Woody and Jessie wanted to get away from everything and everyone, that they traveled abroad, where they lived in a big house somewhere in Europe where they ate, like, baguettes and stuff, and went exploring everyday to the most amazing places you could think of... like Siberia or the Alps or, uh, Wales."

Andy's smile widened. "Yeah, that sounds really good. But Jessie would go with Buzz, not Woody, even though Jessie's parents would have a problem that she's going out with a militant astronaut and not a good doctor or lawyer. So they're eloping to escape family difficulties."

"And even though Jessie's parents have mob connections that try and take Buzz out, he and Jessie overcome all the issues people have with them, and they move into a big house in the countryside where they live happily ever after."

"Something like that."

"Something like that," she echoed, smiling wistfully. "Sounds pretty good."

Andy's blue eyes were watching her face thoughtfully. "Maybe in the future, yeah?"

His voice was tinted by something, something that struck a chord in her chest. Bonnie stared at him, wide-eyed. She didn't say another word. She didn't have to. Andy put his hands in his pockets and quirked his mouth into a half smile. He leaned in again and kissed her forehead.

"Bye, Bonnie," he said.

She got one last look at those beautiful eyes before he turned and headed down the pavement away from her. She watched and watched, until he became a small black dot beneath the trees, far off in the distance. Then she slowly opened the garden gate and went inside her house.

Bonnie took one step through the door and stopped. She wanted to melt all over the floor.

_Andy_...

Sunlight poured through the window all around her. Her skin was warm and tingly. Inside her body, she felt odd and light from the tips of her hair all the way through to her toes. She felt like she was floating on a cloud.

Her mother was fussing about in the front room. She glanced up and saw Bonnie in the hallway.

"Ah Bonnie, you're home."

"Hm..."

"Did you go round to Andy's?"

"Hm..."

Her mother stopped sorting through the magazines. "What do you mean 'hm'? Did you go round to Andy's or not?"

"Yeah," Bonnie said, still staring straight ahead of her. "But he was getting some furniture delivered, so I just left."

"Oh, I see." Her mother returned to the magazines. "Maybe another day, yeah?"

"Maybe another day," she mumbled.

_...Maybe in the future_?

The tone of his voice had said so much that had been left unspoken. When he spoke of the future, his eyes had looked at her so seriously, the tone of his voice had been so strange and sincere... it would've been impossible not to get what he had implied.

'We both know nothing could happen' he had said.

But maybe in the future?

Bonnie lowered her eyes to the floor. The future was so ugly and impending, but Andy was right. There was no way to prevent it. _That's the things are_. He had been so eager to steer her onto the right track, so eager to steer her away from the mistakes he made, that he had proved his point somewhat unwittingly.

_Don't you have any dreams, Bonnie_?

If her future was something she could look forward to, if she made the right choices and did the right things, it wouldn't be so bad.

You _do_ have something to look forward to, said the small voice of confidence in her head.

Maybe it wasn't so ugly and impending? It was certainly impending, she had seen that today, when she had let go of the toys – the toys who had been one the biggest parts of her life since she could remember. But ugly? Was it ugly?

Not if you made it so it wasn't, said the voice.

The voice sounded a little bit like Andy.

Bonnie scoffed. What a jerk.

But no... he was right.

And maybe someday, in the distant future, what he said would come true. Maybe someday, it _could _happen. Maybe someday, that dream they spoke of would actually be...

"Mom?" she asked, raising her eyes. "Know anything about art college?"

Just maybe.

**End.**

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I'll be honest, I want to revise the whole thing and remove all my non-American slang - I didn't even notice I used half of it until I was just posting and I was like, woah wait a minute! who the hell uses this language in America? (Not that I'd know anyway... never been... D: )

And I'll be honest again, I wrote this fic for myself. I'm leaving for university at the end of September, like Andy, and I'm not only leaving home, I'm shipping myself off to another bloody country, right across the sea! When I went to see Toy Stoy 3 and it came to the scene with Andy and his mom in the empty bedroom, it only really hit home then that I'd be leaving all that behind myself. So yeah, a lot of Bonnie's feelings are actually my own.

Hope you enjoyed! And I REALLY hope you take the time out to review! Just your opinions, if you liked/disliked the plot or the characterisation or whatever. Anything is better than nothing! (Except for flames, which will only be used to light my fegs).

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